


Letters to My Lover

by Missy_dee811



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Steve, POV Steve Rogers, Past Character Death, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Past Relationship(s), Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Steve Feels, Steve Rogers Feels, Time Shenanigans, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-18 18:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy_dee811/pseuds/Missy_dee811
Summary: *Avengers: Endgame spoilers*On the day of the funeral, Steve hears a phone ringing that shouldn't be. No one had that number. No one except Tony.[Written for Stony Loves Steve 2019.]





	Letters to My Lover

**Author's Note:**

  * For [XtaticPearl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/XtaticPearl/gifts).



> Nemo est qui tibi sapientius suadere possit te ipso: numquam labere, si te audies.  
> ("Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself: if you heed yourself, you'll never go wrong.”)  
> ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

 

It had been a long day.

He had been a soldier much too long. He had lived most of his life in the shadow of war: the fighting that ensued and the chaos that inevitably followed.

He had been naïve once. He had thought fighting would change things. One last fight and all would be won. Lives would be saved, and disaster would be averted. Then, they’d be free to go back to their lives, and back to their loved ones.

Back to their homes.

Steve had thought that. The war would end, and he’d return home. He and Bucky would go back to Brooklyn and they’d settle down. And then, Bucky fell off that train, and everything changed.

Suddenly, that future he had imagined, the future he had envisioned for them, it would never come to pass. He mourned him, in a bombed-out bar, all by himself; the shadow of his death, a cloak. That is, until Peggy took pity on him.

He took her words to heart, tried to remember that Bucky was his own man. He had been capable of making his own choices. He had not chosen to fight, but he had chosen to fight by Steve’s side, and he knew the risks.

Not long after that, he made a choice to board that plane, and fly into the Arctic. Bucky had made his choices, and so had Steve. And thus, when he awoke in the future and found himself in an unrecognizable Times Square, he understood.

Calculated risks. That was all war was.  

It wasn’t as clear to him then as it was now. Then again, many more things were clear to him now.

 

In the years since, many things had happened.

He had been without friends, and without a team. The team presented a united front against an extraterrestrial threat, and they had been successful in combating it. They had been hailed as heroes around the world. For a few, short years, it had felt deserved.

In that time, they became friends. He was closer to some than to others, as was inevitable.  

He and Thor remembered a time before the present and had fought side-by-side with fallen comrades. Though jovial by nature, he was haunted by the things he could’ve changed, namely his relationship with his brother.

Steve had regrets of his own. He understood.

He and Natasha grew closer. They unraveled a web of lies, exposing the syndicate of mayhem within their ranks, and in the process, had come to rely on each other. At first, he hadn’t known whether she could be trusted or not, but in the years since, he had come to depend on this friendship more than ever.

It was all they had. Their other friends were… Gone.

And now, she was too.

“See you in a minute,” she had said.

She had led the Avengers, or rather, what remained. Her team consisted of Okoye, Rhodey, Carol, and Rocket. They were scattered across the globe and the galaxy.

Steve had refused to join, on principle. He hadn’t been Captain America in a long time. Not since he had dropped his shield and left it in that cold bunker in Siberia.

_Tony…_

Steve sighed. It was still too soon. The wound was much too fresh. It was hard to think of him, to think of what could have been. His death was on Steve’s mind. His last words etched into his memory.

“I love you, 3000,” he had said, as he looked into his daughter’s eyes. It would be the last time he’d hear him, and those words weren’t for him.

Time had been unkind to them. So much of it had been wasted. They had spent too long bickering, too long waiting for the right time, and much too long wanting to forgive, but unable to forget.

He thought back to that fateful day. The day the team had come together. Fury had said they were better able to face threats together than on their own.

For some time, it seemed, they could do no wrong, and then… Sokovia. Though not their only incident, it was the first, and sowed the seeds. It wouldn’t be long before the Accords were put forth and they were given an ultimatum. Sign or resign.

For Steve, the Avengers had been a short-lived fever dream.

As for Tony, it had been far too easy for someone to come between them, and for things to overheat. Tony had given him a home when he had had nothing. Steve had turned him down then. Uncertainty more than fear had overtaken him, but Tony hadn’t commented on it. He and Bruce had taken off.

Steve had settled in D.C. and thought little of it. Though Tony never rescinded the offer, it would be a long time before Steve took him up on it, and moved into the compound, having only once stepped foot in the Tower.

 

He settled into bed for the night. It was still rather early, but he knew he wouldn’t get much sleep. He had always had trouble sleeping and after receiving the serum, had needed less sleep than others, which had only exacerbated the problem.

Today had been a long day. He was swimming in memories, of a time long gone, and a man he couldn’t get back.

There would be no sleep tonight.

It had been difficult losing Natasha. She had been his anchor in this world. She had always seen him as a person – his own – first and foremost. The others had seen the legend. She hadn’t grown up with his image plastered on cereal boxes and soda cans. She didn’t have the same level of attachment. She respected and admired him, but not in a fanatical sense.

It had been hard to hear the things Tony said. The way Howard spoke of him and how Tony had viewed him growing up. He hadn’t expected that from Howard. Hadn’t expected that his son would both worship the ground he walked and raze it at the same time.

There were a lot of things about Tony that had seemed contradictory, at first glance. His relationship to Iron Man had always been one of them.

The armor had saved him, and in turn, he had used it to protect others. It had turned into an addiction, an obsession he couldn’t control.

Steve thought back to their fight in that bunker, in the tundra. He had left him there bloodied and bruised. The light of the arc reactor had faded when he smashed his shield into the protective covering.

Steve covered his eyes. Steve couldn’t help but think of his wife’s hands over his heart as the light faded for the last time. In the end, the armor had served as his coffin. He had feared that for so long.

They hadn’t wanted to hear, hadn’t wanted to hear his fears. Thinking him misguided and his fears outlandish and unfounded, they hadn’t heeded his warnings. In the end, he had been right. 

Steve moved his arm, tucking it under his pillow, and turning on his side. Tony had given him this arc reactor years ago. When he had returned from space, in a fit of rage. Since then, it had a permanent place on Steve’s dresser.

It had brought him some comfort. The cool, blue light shined both day and night.

 

Earlier, he had tried to give it to Pepper. First, her eyes widened. She had been there that day, she remembered. Then, she shook her head. She had put it back in his hand, the same way Tony had.

She had closed his fingers around the arc reactor. “No, Steve. It’s yours. He gave it to you,” she said.

Her eyes welled with tears, but she didn’t cry. Her daughter wasn’t far away. Peter had approached, kneeling before her. He introduced himself, as Happy and Rhodey chatted in the distance.

Tony had told him to take the arc reactor and hide, and in this moment, he wanted to do just that.

She caressed his cheek. “I know…I know how much he cared.”

 

Next to it, on the dresser, was an old burner phone. Bruce had returned it to him, when they had arrived in the compound. It had seen better days. Steve had expected as much, after what Bruce had told him had happened.

“He had wanted to call,” he said.

Only later did he give back to Tony. Left it on the bedside table. He had been sedated after collapsing before the team. It had startled everyone to see him like that.

Steve had stood there, hand covering his face. They had been on the quinjet, and Natasha had approached him, silently. He had waited years for Tony to answer his messages, to return his call, and finally, he receives the call he’d been expecting, and it’s not from him.

It had been good to hear from Bruce, but his voice had been unexpected. Steve had let him speak freely and Natasha, ever the attentive one, listened carefully, from the other side.

They were being summoned. Earth, and the galaxy, for that matter, were under attack and they had answered the call.

Earth’s mightiest hero was missing.

Lying on the propped pillow, he thought back to that day. Thought about all the decisions he had made that had led him to Wakanda, where they had faced off against Thanos and lost. He thought of those first few minutes, when no one knew what had happened, but everyone had feared the worst. When Bucky disappeared before his eyes and Natasha stood beside him, bereft.

He and Natasha had had a long conversation after that. She had been his companion all those years they were on the run, but it wouldn’t be the same without Sam. And now, it wouldn’t be the same without her. He missed her dearly. She had been his first true friend in the 21st century.

He had spent much of the day crying, he didn’t wish to go to bed with swollen eyes and wet cheeks. He closed his eyes and thought of Natasha – the woman he had met on the helicarrier, before he knew it could fly. He thought of her cropped copper hair. She had been warm and friendly. He had spent so much time in the ice. It was a welcome reprieve from the cold.

Lost in his thoughts, he was pulled from his reverie by a faint ringing. It was growing louder.

He sat up and looked around the dim room. He saw the phone on his dresser vibrating.

 _It can’t be_ , he thought. Immediately, he flipped over the covers and made his way to the dresser. Standing before it, he watched the phone vibrate and immediately picked it up. He didn’t even check to see who was calling. Only one person had this number and he had been interred only hours before.

His hands were shaking.

People didn’t come back from the dead. People had thought him dead and had moved on with their lives, having assumed he was, but he hadn’t died. The frigid Arctic Ocean had preserved him, with help from the serum, but Tony was… Tony was human. Baseline human. Humans couldn’t be revived.

That much radiation would’ve killed anyone. Even Bruce had suffered the effects of wielding the Gauntlet. Though permanent damage was better than death.

He flipped it open and answered before the caller dropped the call or worse, it went to voicemail. “Tony,” he said, in the smallest voice he could muster.

“Holy fuck, you mean to tell me this actually worked?”

Steve would recognize that voice anywhere. He could still hear those words he had said to him, in the smallest voice imaginable, and with all the strength he could muster. _Liar_.

“What exactly worked,” he asked.

Those were the last three words he would’ve expected to say.

There were hundreds of other things he had wanted to say. Why didn’t he say any of them?

He had wanted to tell Tony it was good to hear his voice. He had wanted to tell him they had won. _You didn’t lose the boy_.

He had wanted to tell him he was sorry for not listening to him the first time. He had wanted to tell him he appreciated everything he had ever done for him: from offering him a place in the Tower to the upgrades to his armor. He regretted not taking advantage of his generosity earlier.

Tony had come to join them in Siberia because he had learned Bucky had been framed and there was a greater threat.

Tony had turned a blind eye, and let them work undercover, in the years the Accords had been in effect. He knew where they were. He knew Tony had been keeping tabs on their whereabouts. Natasha had suspected, but Steve knew. There wasn’t any indication, but he knew.

He wanted to say something… Something about the way he had felt all these years. How hard it was to watch him build a life with Pepper. The kind of life he had thought he couldn’t have; the kind of life he had thought he’d left behind in the 40’s. It was the life he had promised he’d give her that day they were in Clint’s farm.

That evening, they had been lying in bed, facing opposite directions, and Steve had never felt further from someone. They had had a heated exchange while collecting firewood. Tony was still agitated when Laura had shown them their room for the night. There was a knowing look in her eye, but Steve had ignored her, and Tony, for once, seemed oblivious.

Perhaps, it had been for the best.

How could he possibly tell him how hard it was to move on, to build a life from the wreckage, and that seeing him do so was both inspiring and humiliating?

He had died. He had died, and his wife had mourned him. And Steve had no right, no right to feel these things, and much less, to voice them.

Steve could hear him shuffling papers. He took a deep breath. “This is going to sound weird,” he said.

Steve couldn’t help but smile. “Trust me, nothing you’d say would sound weird.”

“I didn’t – I didn’t know who’d answer.”

“Funny, I could say the same thing,” said Steve.

 _Of all the days to receive a call to this line_.

This had been one of two phones – the other had been sent to Tony with an apology – Steve had bought with the express purpose of keeping in contact with him. As far as he knew, Tony had never used it. Or, at least, he had never used it to call Steve. Bruce had said he had kept it on him. He had pulled it out of his pocket when he had been mentioned. He had thought of calling when Thanos’ children had arrived, and the fighting had started.

Yet another missed opportunity. God, they had known each other for over a decade. A decade chock full of missteps.

He tried not to take it personally, but there was no way it wasn’t personal. Tony hadn’t sent him so much as a text telling him to fuck off – which, he had expected – but he had gone out for a run with his fiancé and kept it in his pocket. It was flattering.  

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You first. You called,” said Steve.

It was Tony’s turn to laugh. “Well, I don’t… I don’t know where you are.”

“I think the right question would be ‘when you are.’ What year is it, Tony?”

Tony was silent for a moment much too long.

“There was a package on my dresser. How it got there – no idea. Couldn’t tell you. I had J do a sweep. Check to see if an unauthorized someone had entered the building. Nothing. It was… Kind of freaky, if I’m perfectly honest. I was even more surprised someone had left it in my bedroom. I don’t… I don’t spend a lot of time there these days. I have a lot on my plate.

“Doesn’t matter… This is all beside the point. I took a long shower. It had been a long day and I needed… Doesn’t matter what I needed. I got out of the shower and started getting dressed, when I noticed someone had left a package on my dresser. It was a small. Inside there was a letter and this phone.

“The phone looks like it’s from 2008, at the latest, and the letter was written in a hand I didn’t recognize. I read the letter of course, but it didn’t make much sense. Turned on the phone, quickly realized there was only one contact saved. It wasn’t even properly saved. There was just a number with no name.

“So, I called, not knowing who would answer, but surprised when you did. Don’t know why you’d need saving. We just saved New York and the rest of the world. I told you, you’re more than welcome in the Tower. There’s a home for you here, if you want it. I don’t know how much use I’d be to you in my present condition,” said Tony.

He yawned.

“Tony, what year is it?”

“I know you’re still getting used to the present. Well, for you, it’s the future. But, in any case, it’ll be 2012 for a few more months. We’re only halfway through the year,” said Tony.

Steve covered his mouth with his hand. _It couldn’t be_.

He couldn’t… He couldn’t believe it. This Tony was still living in 2012. The Avengers had just formed, they had just saved the world. They were earth’s mightiest heroes. This Tony didn’t know how his nightmares – fueled by his experiences aboard that warhead – were going to shape the rest of his life – his relationship with Pepper, his relationship with the team, and all the rest.

This Tony knew nothing about Thanos, the Gauntlet, and the Infinity Stones – save for the one they had faced, but they didn’t know it was an Infinity Stone. They knew it was Loki’s scepter, but had no idea of its true nature.

“Steve?”

“Just… Just give me a moment,” he said.

“It’s so good to hear you. I should’ve said that first. You have no idea, no idea what kind of day this has been. I have a good idea what kind of day you’ve had, but there’s no way for you to know the kind of day I've had.”

“Steve, you’re not making any sense. I saw you a few hours ago. What are you talking about?”

Steve shook his head, but Tony couldn’t see him.

“Tony, I… I don’t know how, how any of this works, but I’m not the Steve you saw a few hours ago. I’m from the future and today was a very difficult day for me,” he said.

“Don’t you find it ironic that you’re the one in the future now,” said Tony, amused. Steve knew there was a hint of a smile on his face.

“The irony is not lost on me, no,” said Steve.

“Do you want to talk about it,” asked Tony, surprising Steve.

He didn’t know how much he could say. How could he tell Tony he had mourned his death? He had stood behind his wife as she and their daughter heard his last message to them.

 _I love you, 3000_.

How could he tell Tony he had watched him face all his fears? How could he tell him?

“I don’t think I can,” said Steve. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, then I don’t know how I can save you,” said Tony.

“I think you already have,” said Steve.

There was silence on the other line. Steve had said too much. Tony didn’t know. He didn’t have the context. He couldn’t understand how this simple conversation had sated a craving. He wondered if he had ever considered calling Tony. If he had ever considered starting a conversation, a dialogue.

He wondered what would’ve been different if they had made the effort. If they had reached out to one another. He wondered how different if would’ve been if they had seen eye-to-eye on the things that, in the end, tore them apart. He had wondered if things could’ve been avoided. If they could’ve found the Stone before Thanos ever had the chance.

“Are you sure,” said Tony. He didn’t sound certain.

Steve laughed. “I’m sure, Tony. I’m sure.”

“Well, if you’re sure, then I think my job here is done. I didn’t – I didn’t think it would be this easy,” he said.

“It’s not,” said Steve.

“But you said –”

“I know what I said Tony. Thank you. It was very nice to hear you and I want… I want you to do one thing,” he said.

“Sure, Cap. What is it?”

“Take care of yourself,” he said.

“I think I can do that,” said Tony.

“Please,” said Steve, his voice breaking. It was so hard. So hard to listen to him, to know what was coming, to know he couldn’t go back… Couldn’t change things. Couldn’t better prepare them.

 _There was a way_. It was a risky, but there was a way.

“Fine, but you take care of yourself too. Clearly someone thought you’d need the pick-me-up,” said Tony.

“I will,” said Steve. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Cap.”


End file.
